Fire and Ashes: On the Front Lines of American Wildfire [Hardcover]

John N. Maclean (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2, 2003

An expert’s report from the front lines where wildland fires keep getting hotter, bigger, and more dangerous to the men and women who fight them

In 2002, more than seven million acres were burned at a fire-fighting cost of over a billion dollars. Are wilderness fires now a tragic and enduring feature of the American landscape? John N. Maclean, author of the acclaimed Fire on the Mountain, offers a view from the front lines, combining action-packed storytelling with moving insights about firefighters and informed analysis of firefighting strategy past and present.

Beginning with a riveting account of the worst case of arson in wildfire history, the 1953 Rattlesnake Fire in Mendocino National Forest, which claimed the lives of fifteen firefighters, Maclean explains the mysterious dynamics of fire, and the courage and techniques required to combat it. One such mystery underlines the life- threatening 1999 Sadler Fire in Nevada when a line of flames suddenly blew up, trapping six firefighters mistakenly placed in harm’s way. For the final story Maclean returns to Mann Gulch, the site of his father’s classic Young Men and Fire, to interview the last survivor of the worst disaster in the history of smoke jumping. From it we understand why fatal fires burn for generations.

Offering a prescient view of the inevitable conflict between people, property, and nature, Fire and Ashes presents a riveting and emotional story, one that in many ways John Maclean was destined to tell.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This collection of two long and two short essays on U.S. wildfire fighting displays the excellent reporting skills that made Maclean's first book, Fire on the Mountain, a dazzling and popular success. While his earlier book gained much of its storytelling strength from its focus on one incident, Colorado's South Canyon fire of 1994, Maclean's new work is less unified, held together not by a grand idea but primarily by the author's interest in aspects of fire; consequently, the book never becomes more than the sum of its parts. The longest section is a reconstruction of the 1953 rattlesnake fire in California's Mendocino National Forest, which killed 15 wildland firefighters. Maclean's dogged pursuit of reconstructing some key assumptions about the fire makes this a thriller in disguise. The highlight of the book is the second long piece on the 1999 Sadler fire in Nevada, which displays all the power of his earlier work through a highly charged and exciting account of a firefighting crew's disastrous encounter with an uncontrollable fire. Two smaller essays, however-one on the last survivor of the 1954 Mann Gulch fire, which Maclean's father, Norman, wrote about in Young Men and Fire; another a short history of wildland fires-seem to be afterthoughts.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Just as combat zones inspire conflicting recollections, firefighting disasters are a challenge to reconstruct, but Maclean again rises to the task. Reprising the themes of his Fire on the Mountain (1999), an account of a fatal 1994 Colorado forest fire, this work tells of two infernos: a 1999 conflagration in Nevada and a 1953 case of arboreal arson in California that took 15 lives when the fire exhibited unexpected behavior. Maclean writes that fire bosses were shocked that it burned downhill, surprising and overwhelming religious missionaries who were working the fire line. Fire's capriciousness also figured in the 1999 Nevada wildfire, but more significant, according to Maclean, was the fact that a crew chief and his superiors made risky decisions; miraculously, a wall of flame angled away and spared trapped firefighters. Careful in analysis, Maclean turns visceral when imparting the sudden terror of life-ending flames, or, as for a survivor of the 1949 Mann Gulch disaster whom he visits, a life-searing whirlwind. A solid choice that will be in demand, particularly during the West's summer fire season. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.; 1st edition (June 2, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0805072128
• ISBN-13: 978-0805072129
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #309,732 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

John Norman Maclean, a longtime Washington journalist and now a prize-winning author, has published three books on wildland fire and is working on a fourth, about the 2006 Esperanza Fire in Southern California that took five firefighter lives and the subsequent conviction and sentence to death of Raymond Oyler for starting the fire. Maclean's most recent published book is The Thirtymile Fire: A Chronicle of Bravery and Betrayal.
"For 15 years I have walked where firefighters walked, taken fire classes with them, addressed their meetings, listened to their stories -- that's the best part, along with the hikes. And I've tried to make their high-adrenalin, high-risk existence familiar to general readers, so they can better appreciate and understand the service these exceptional men and women provide. Best job I ever had."
Maclean, a reporter, writer and editor for The Chicago Tribune for 30 years, resigned from the newspaper in 1995 to write Fire on the Mountain, a critically acclaimed account of the 1994 fire on Storm King Mountain in Colorado that took the lives of 14 firefighters. The book, a national bestseller, received the Mountains and Plains Booksellers award as the best non-fiction of 1999.
Underground Films, Inc. has developed a script from the book for a full-length feature movie and is seeking a director. A two-hour docu-movie by the History Channel based on Fire on the Mountain won the Cine Master's Award for Excellence as the best non-fiction or fiction documentary of 2003. Harper Collins is scheduled to publish an updated edition of the book in its Harper Perennial line in December, 2009.
Maclean, the son of famed author Norman Maclean (A River Runs through It) has helped edit two of his father's books: Young Men and Fire and The Norman Maclean Reader, which the University of Chicago Press published in November, 2008. Maclean was a Washington correspondent for The Tribune for almost two decades. He was one of the "Kissinger 14," the small group of media who regularly traveled with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger during the era of "shuttle diplomacy." Maclean went on to serve as the Tribune's foreign editor. He was a Nieman Fellow in Journalism, a mid-career fellowship for journalists at Harvard University, for the academic year 1974-75.
Maclean maintains a website at johnmacleanbooks.com.
He divides his time between his family cabin at Seeley Lake, Montana, and Washington, D.C. Maclean has a wife, Frances, and two sons: Daniel, a science teacher and author of Paddling the Yukon River and its Tributaries and Paddling Alaska, and John Fitzroy, a public defender.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars EVEN BETTER THAN THE FIRST, June 13, 2003

By 

Kelly Andersson (Montana) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fire and Ashes: On the Front Lines of American Wildfire (Hardcover)

Maclean's done it again, only this time he's done it better. His first book, FIRE ON THE MOUNTAIN, was and still is a popular book with wildland firefighters. This one, though, will be a must-own for the summer army of boots-and-nomex firefighters -- and will surely be assigned as mandatory reading in many a fire training course. The collection of stories in FIRE AND ASHES proves up both Maclean's dogged pursuit of history and his determined focus on accuracy gained from 30 years in journalism. Covering many thousands of miles, dozens of interviews, and with painstaking attention to detail in his writing, Maclean has crafted a book that puts his readers out on the fireline. Unlike many authors who try to write about wildfire, Maclean makes no lame allowances for readers unfamiliar with the language and culture of the firefighter. He just explains it for them. His recounting of the 1999 Sadler incident -- in retrospect a problematic compilation of small "oops" decisions that resulted in near-disaster -- is a chilling read when one considers how close it came to being a disaster like South Canyon. His "Short History of Wildland Fire" and glossary of fire terms will be a go-to resource for firefighters -- structural and wildland both -- and for anyone curious enough to read about or write about fire. It's Maclean's reconstruction of the 1953 Rattlesnake Fire, though, that stands as the highlight of the book. It's a can't-put-down story that's finally been accurately researched and told (and illustrated), about a fire that's been a benchmark for safety lessons and fire behavior training for 50 years. Young men and women in fire camps across the West -- and the older ones too -- will be packing this book along in their red bags this summer, and well they should.

5.0 out of 5 stars Fire and Ashes, January 2, 2011

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M. McIntyre (Paranoid, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fire and Ashes: On the Front Lines of American Wildfire (Hardcover)

Outstanding book. My captain let me read his copy over the summer and after I did I had to add it to my bookshelf. I found out that this book is out of print so if you find a copy, jump on it.

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Fire History, April 1, 2009

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Matt Brown (Nor-Cal) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Fire and Ashes: On the Front Lines of American Wildfire (Hardcover)

Mc Clean does these stories a great justice by bringing them to light. He exposes the safety problems of our culture and shows how they begin long before the fire starts. I would recommend this book to any person aspiring to make a living on the fire lines.